Every day I experience life in the world of healthcare IT, supporting 3000 doctors, 18000 faculty, and 3 million patients. In this blog I record my experiences with infrastructure, applications, policies, management, and governance as well as muse on such topics such as reducing our carbon footprint, standardizing data in healthcare, and living life to its fullest.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Printing From an iPhone/iPad

I was recently asked how to print directly from an iPhone or iPad.

Surprisingly, it is not sufficient to use a printer connected to an Airport Express or Airport Extreme wireless network.

To print directly from an iPad / iPhone you need an AirPrint compatible printer or another device to act as a print server.

I recently AirPrint enabled my mother's household using an HP 1606dn Laser Printer which is AirPrint enabled. It is very simple to use and unlike software-based solutions, it is operating system version neutral.

What I like about Printopia is not only can I print to a printer on my own network, I can also send a document to Evernote or Dropbox, which I do a lot when I find articles, recipes or need to save a receipt from my iPad. I can also save documents as .pdf files. The disadvantage is that I can only print on my network, so if I'm somewhere else, my print command won't allow me to use any of those functions.